The
History of GlasgowVolume 2 - Chapter XXXII -
In the Last Years of Charles II.

THE next step in the political drama of
the West of Scotland was taken by a man who had a close connection
with Glasgow. Donald or Daniel Cargill has been already mentioned in
connection with the murderers of Archbishop Sharpe. He was the
eldest son of Cargill of Hatton, had been appointed minister of the
Barony Parish, in succession to the famous Zachary Boyd, as long
previously as 1655, but had been ejected in 1662 for his rhetorical
"rebuking" of King Charles. Since then he had attained note as one
of the fieriest of the field preachers in the lowlands and west
country, and had been among the most outstanding of the Covenanting
host who engaged against the King's forces at the battle of Bothwell
Bridge. Just a year after that battle, along with another leader of
the movement, Henry Hall of Haughhead, Cargill was at Queensferry
concerting a fresh manifesto against the Government, when the
meeting was surprised, and Hall was captured with the draft of the
document in his pocket. Cargill himself escaped, and, along with
another well-known field preacher, Richard Cameron, completed the
composition. This was nothing less than a declaration of open war
against the King and Government. After alluding to the acts of
Charles as "perjury and usurpation in church matters, and tyranny in
matters civil," it proceeds: "Although we be for governments and
governors—such as the Word of God and our Covenant allows—yet we for
ourselves and all that will adhere to us as the representative of
the true Presbyterian Kirk and Covenanted Nation of Scotland,
considering the great hazard of lying under such a sin any longer,
do by these presents disown Charles Stewart, that has been reigning,
or rather tyrannizing, as we may say, on the throne of Britain these
years bygone, as having any right title, or interest in the said
crown of Scotland for government, as forfeited several years since
by his perjury and breach of Covenant both to God and His Kirk, and
usurpation of his crown and royal prerogatives therein, and many
other breaches in matters ecclesiastic, and by his tyranny and
breach of the very leges regnandi in matters civil. For which reason
we declare that several years since he should have been denuded of
being king, ruler, or magistrate, or of having any power to act, or
to be obeyed as such. As also we, being under the standard of our
Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of Salvation, do declare a war with such
a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his practices, as enemies
to our Lord Jesus Christ and His cause and covenant." The document
concludes by disowning the Duke of York, "that professed papist,"
and protesting against his succession to the crown. [Wodrow, iii.
213 note.]

At the head of a
small armed party, some twenty in number, Cargill and Cameron, on
the anniversary of the battle of Bothwell Bridge, rode into the town
of Sanquhar, where Cameron read the document and fastened it to the
cross. Under- the name of the "Sanquhar Declaration" this was used
afterwards by the Privy Council and its officers, civil and
military, as a test of the loyalty of suspected persons. If a man
refused to disown the Sanquhar Declaration it was naturally
concluded that he was a rebel and a danger to the country, and many
suffered the extreme penalty in consequence.

Cargill himself went further.
Convening a congregation in the Torwood near Larbert, he solemnly
excommunicated and delivered up to Satan, King Charles the Second,
and his brother James, Duke of York, "with several other rotten
malignant enemies." Shortly afterwards, with a well-armed party of
some seventy horse and foot, commanded by Hackston of Rathillet,
Cargill and Cameron were overtaken among the swampy fastnesses of
Ayr's Moss near Muirkirk. There they put up a stiff fight, and,
though Cameron was killed and Hackston carried off to trial and
execution at Edinburgh, most of the party escaped among the bogs of
the region. Cargill himself was shortly afterwards arrested at
Covington mill in Clydesdale, and, after sternly defying his judges
at Edinburgh, shared Hackston's fate.

Meanwhile Glasgow took its part in
the entertainment of the King's brother, the Duke of York, whose
visit to Scotland so excited the vituperation of Cargill and his
friends. In the Glasgow records the Duke is consistently named by
his Scottish title, Duke of Albany. [Burgh Records, 1st March,
1681.]

While the English parliament was
discussing the question of this prince's future it was considered
advisable to remove him to a distance, and he was accordingly sent
to Scotland to represent his brother as Lord High Commissioner The
more modern part of the Palace of Holyrood House is said to have
been built for his accommodation to the designs of Sir William Bruce
of Kinross, the architect of the Merchants' House of which the
beautiful steeple still stands in Glasgow Briggate. There, with his
wife, the gracious Mary of Este, and his daughter, who was
afterwards to become Queen Anne, the Duke did his best to win the
goodwill of the people, and restore the glories of the Scottish
court. While James played tennis and golf with the nobles and
gentry, the Duchess won the hearts of their wives by entertaining
them to tea, a luxury which was then first brought to Scotland by
the royal party. [Archaologia Scolica, i. 499.]

Glasgow Town Council made its own
contribution to the gaiety of the little court by sending the Duke a
gift of French wine "of the grouth 1680" [Burgh Records, 25th June,
1681: 18th Feb. 1682.] and when James came to Glasgow in October
every effort was made to give him a hearty welcome. The whole
Council waited on him with the magistrates, the handsomest young men
of the town formed a bodyguard with partizans, and a proclamation
was sent out warning the inhabitants to light bonfires at the head
of each close when they should be directed to do so by the ringing
of the town's bell. [Ibid. ist Oct. 1681.]

The Duke was entertained in Provost
Bell's house on the south side of Briggate, to the west of
Saltmarket, and the wines, confections, and provisions used upon the
occasion, with the gold and silver boxes in which the burgess
tickets were presented to his royal highness and his attendants, the
drink money to the Duke's servants, and other expenses, amounted to
the sum of £4001 12s. Scots. [Ibid. 8th Oct. 1681 and note.]

During his stay of some two years and
a half in Scotland, James, with his family, appears to have won
golden opinions. On many occasions he showed humanity towards the "phanatiques,"
as the extreme Covenanters were called, [Fountainhall's Decisions,
passim.] and to prevent the impoverishment of Scotland by the
sending of Scots money out of the country for the purchase of fine
cloths he secured the passing of Acts by the Privy Council and
Parliament for the encouragement of trade and manufactures, and
induced a company to establish a cloth factory at Newmills. [Chambers's
Domestic Annals, ii. 410.] The esteem in which he was held may be
judged from the fact that his birthday was celebrated with even more
cordiality than that of the King, [Fountainhall, Historical
Observes, 49.] and it has been suggested that the goodwill secured
at that time played no little part in gaining support for the
Stewart cause in the Jacobite risings of the following century. The
Duke and his family left Scotland finally on 15th May,1682. A year
later Glasgow paid £20 for a portrait of his royal highness to be
hung in the council room of the Tolbooth. [Burgh Records, 13th Oct.
1682.]

The example of Edinburgh in setting
up a cloth factory was promptly followed by Glasgow, where three
merchants, John Corse, Andrew Armour, and Robert Burne, set up an
establishment for the making of dimities, fustians, and "striped
vermiliones." Urging the advantage of their enterprise to the
country in retaining money which would otherwise be spent abroad for
these commodities, they obtained the authority of the Privy Council
to name their work a manufactory, and thus secure the privileges
accorded by Act of Parliament. [Priv. Coun. Reg. 23rd Nov. 1682.]

At the same time other industries
which Edinburgh never touched were being successfully developed in
Glasgow. At the corner of the "new street," Candleriggs, and the new
wynd, Bell Street, a company of four merchant burgesses feued from
the town a block of ground, and built on it the great Western
Sugar-house or refinery, while an adjoining building in Bell Street
was known as the North Sugar-house, and also carried on a thriving
industry.

The Town Council itself was by no
means slack in pushing forward enterprises for the public benefit.
At a later day the exploiting of the rich seams of coal underlying
the lands on the south side of the river was to make the fortunes of
more than one enterprising family, but, while the coal measures of
Gorbals were in possession of the town itself, the working of them
appears to have been carried on at extravagant expense. In August,
1680, Patrick Bryce was only induced to sink a new pit "for
furnishing the toune with coallis" by receiving a discharge for a
debt of six hundred merks he owed the town, as well as for
forty-eight pounds rent he owed for a crop on the Green, and £10
sterling for grazing ground, while for his "further encouragement"
he was also paid 500 merks in cash. [Burgh Records, 28th Aug. 1680.]

To judge from repeated remissions of
rent such as that to Partick Bryce and to cultivators on previous
occasions when the town was subject to military occupation and the
like, the public possession of land by Glasgow was never a
profitable enterprise. Yet throughout the latter part of the
seventeenth century the city fathers persevered indomitably in
acquiring plot after plot of ground to add to the common on the
further side of the Molendinar and along the bank of the Clyde,
which remains to-day the oldest of the city's public parks. That
ground was known as the New Green, to distinguish it from the Old
Green, which extended along the river side westward from the
Molendinar to the Broomielaw. The Town Council had parted with these
lands beyond the Molendinar light-heartedly enough when it came into
possession of them after the Reformation in place of their former
owner, the Archbishop. Now, a century later, as if seized with land
hunger, the magistrates lost no opportunity of buying back the
ground, and painfully acre after acre was added to the public
possession. [Glasgow Water Supply (1901), App. p. 28.] A fair enough
price was paid for the land. Thus Robert Rae received four thousand
merks for ten acres, the sum including a small amount due for rent
by the town, and Thomas Crawford got 1800 merks for four acres, the
amount including repayment of a fine taken from him "quhen James
Campbell was provost." [Burgh Records, 18th March, 1682.]

The town itself duly laid down these
new possessions in grass, and some idea of the agricultural costs of
the time may be gathered from the fact that £164 13s. 4d. was paid
for ploughing and harrowing forty-eight acres. [Ibid. 16th July,
1681.]

The magistrates of those years were
evidently shrewd business men. They made an effort to recover from
the Earl of Argyll the £10,000 Scots which had been lent to his
father, the notorious "Glied Marquess." The money had been
subscribed by the burgesses as long ago as 1635 for the endowment of
the Blackfriars Kirk when that kirk was taken over by the town from
the University. It was the custom of the time in Scotland, before
the days of banks, to entrust such church moneys on loan to
substantial persons who could be relied upon to pay the interest and
repay the capital when required. But the Marquess, though head of
the Covenanting party, and profuse in religious professions, appears
to have done neither, and when he was executed for his misdeeds
after the Restoration he was still owing the money. In consequence
the Blackfriars Kirk was for years without a minister, its duties
being undertaken by the other ministers of the town. The burden upon
these ministers having, however, become too great, and the
appointment of an incumbent having become urgent, the magistrates
applied to the Marquess' son, the Earl of Argyll, for repayment of
the debt. At the same time they asked repayment of 10,000 merks,
with interest, which had been lent to the Marquess out of the funds
of Hutchesons' Hospital. [Burgh Records, 21st May, 1681.] In reply
the Earl argued that, as his father's estates had been forfeited,
the debt was now really due by the Government. As for himself, the
estates which had been restored to him were a gift of the royal
bounty, free from any burden, so that by no law or reason could he
be held liable for the debts mentioned in the town's letter to him.
The magistrates naturally refused to accept such evasion, and
proceeded to urge their claims both in Edinburgh and in London, but
the effort met with no success, and, till the present day, the loans
have never been repaid. [Ibid. 21st May and 25th June, 1681.]

In the case of another debt the city
fathers were more fortunate. The Archbishop, Arthur Ross, had
borrowed from the town shortly after his appointment the sum of
three thousand merks. By way of repayment he sold to the magistrates
for a similar sum the arrears of teinds of the enclosed lands in and
about the city which had not been collected for a number of years,
and he authorized the Council to secure the payment of these by the
heritors and possessors either in the town's name or his own. It may
be presumed that in this instance the entire debt, with perhaps
something to the bargain, was duly recovered. [Ibid. 6th June,
1681.]

About the same time occur the first
evidences of the chief magistrate of Glasgow being called Lord
Provost. Edinburgh had attained this dignity several years
previously. Sir Andrew Ramsay, provost of Edinburgh from 1654 till
1657 and from 1662 till 1673 obtained from Charles lithe title of
Lord Provost. [Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, ed. 1929, p. 32,
footnote.] The title does not appear in use in Glasgow till 1681,
and figures first in a curious connection. The authorities of the
University had found difficulty in dealing with certain disdisorders
among the students, and though they had, jealously, more than once
proclaimed their right to an independent jurisdiction, had been glad
to accept the help of the civic power in restoring discipline and
expelling the disturbers. By way of thanks the Principal, A. E.
Wright, wrote a letter which the Town Council duly recorded in its
minutes, in which the provost is directly addressed as "My Lord,"
and referred to as "your lordship." [Burgh Records, 21st Dec.,
1680.] Responding with vigour, the city fathers asked for a list of
the recalcitrant students and their lodgings in the town, in order
that they might be bound over to keep the peace, or removed from the
burgh. They also, at request of the masters of the college, ordered
that all billiard tables near the college should either be removed,
or that no students be allowed to play at them. [Burgh Records, 1st
March, 1681.] After that occurrence the title of Lord Provost was
used intermittently. [Ibid. 1st Oct. 1683.]

Whether spurred by this new dignity
or not, Glasgow shortly afterwards made a further bid for honour.
When the rolls were called at the meeting of the first parliament of
King James VII. in 1685, the provost, John Johnstone of Clachrie,
who was also the parliamentary representative sent up by the burgh,
demanded precedence before the burghs of Aberdeen, Stirling,
Linlithgow, and St. Andrews, which had previously ranked above his
city on the rolls. [Act. Part. Scot. viii. 455.]

While jealous of its dignity in such
matters, Glasgow continued to be most generous to other communities
when they required help. Thus in 1682 the Town Council subscribed
£400 Scots towards the building of a stone bridge over the Ness at
Inverness, and a like amount towards the erection of bridges over
the Clyde and the Duneaton near Abington. [Burgh Records, 4th May,
1682.] It also arranged for a collection to be taken in the city
churches for the repair of the harbour at Burntisland. [Ibid. 19th
June.] Again, in response to a "supplication" from the magistrates
of Dunbarton, it arranged to make an organized collection through
the town to help the building of a bridge over the Leven. In this
case the stipulation was made that in return the people of Glasgow
and their goods should be entitled to free passage over the bridge,
without payment of tolls. [Ibid. 5th May, 1683.] And yet again,
after the burning of Kelso in 1684, the Town Council directed the
magistrates and ministers to have a door-to-door collection made to
help the rebuilding of the Tweedside town. [Ibid. 26th July, 1684.
Before the proceeds of this collection could be handed over a
considerable conflagration occurred in GIasgow itself, and on
application to the Privy Council, permission was granted to retain
the money for the relief of the people at home thus made destitute.]

At the same time the city fathers did
not neglect the monuments of the past within their own gates, and
contributed four hundred merks towards the repair of "the
consistorial court at the west end of the High Kirk"—one of the two
western towers of the Cathedral which were so mistakenly demolished
by the "restorers" of 1859. [Ibid. 26th June, 1684.]

Regard for intellectual interests
also is to be gathered from the fact that the Town Council
subscribed eight rex dollars for the publication by the Rev. William
Geddes of his Memoriale Historicunt and another book, perhaps The
Saint's Recreation, printed at Edinburgh in 1683. [Ibid. 17th May,
1684.] Geddes had been minister of Wick, but had resigned because of
his objection to take the Test, and seems to have taken to literary
work as a profession.

At the same time care of the poor at
home and of the unfortunate abroad continued to receive attention.
Arrangements were made with the Dean of Guild and the Merchants'
House to build "a large stane lodging for the use of the poor" at
the corner of Trongate and Saltmarket, on waste ground unbuilt on,
"by any who had interest therein" since the last fire. [Burgh
Records, 3oth Sept. 1682.] And in 1681 sums of £200 Scots and £10
sterling were subscribed for the relief of Christian prisoners held
in slavery by the Turks. This last appears to have been a
fashionable charity of the time. Several instances have been cited
in previous chapters. In the latest case the money was paid to a
certain Francis Polanus, "to relieve his twa brethern and a sister
out of slavery," and, notwithstanding the statement that he had
"made the same appear to be true by certificates he produced," one
cannot help a lurking suspicion of the good faith of Francis and
others of his kind. [Ibid. 30th April and 25th Nov. 1681.]

An imposition of yet more obvious
sort was the patent which had been given in 1673 to Edward Fountain
of Lochhill and Captain James Fountain, his brother, to be "Masters
of the Revels" in Scotland. On the strength of their patent the
brothers demanded fees for authorizing public shows, balls,
lotteries, and other entertainments. Apparently they had demanded
fees from the Glasgow vintners for the games allowed in their
houses, and, failing payment, had taken out letters of horning
against these townsmen. In June 1682 the Town Council compounded the
matter by paying the precious Masters of the Revels the sum of £240
Scots. [The Fountains had forced some six thousand persons
throughout the country to compound with them, and had thus realized
about 16,000.—Priv. Coun. Reg. 22nd July, 1684.]

Yet another payment which throws
curious light on the life of the time is that of £5 sterling "to the
montebank for cutting off umquhill Archibald Bishop's legg." A
mountebank was a charlatan who mounted a bench or platform in the
market-place and undertook to perform surgical operations and cure
diseases. From the fact that the patient in the Glasgow case is
described as "umquhill," or deceased, it would appear that the
mountebank's skill on this occasion had been somewhat less than
equal to his effrontery. [Burgh Records, 13th March, 1683.]

A more reputable practitioner appears
to have been Duncan Campbell, who, on the strength of a certificate
from the majority of the surgeons in the town, as to his dexterity
and success in "sounding" and in cutting for the stone, was
appointed to cut the poor in place of Evir McNeill, who had become
unfit through infirmity. [Ibid. 27th March, 1688.]

Not less interesting for its light on
the manners of the time was a payment of £128 Scots for rosa solis
and chestnuts given by the magistrates to some unnamed persons in
1684. The gift alludes to a luxury now forgotten. The rosa solis was
the common sundew of the Scottish moors. From it was made an
agreeable liqueur known as Rossoli, so the purchase made for
presentation purposes by the Glasgow bailies of Charles II. 's time
was something of the nature of the walnuts and wine that figure on
the dinner-tables of to-day. [Ibid. 23rd Aug. 1684. The liqueur
alluded to was made thus. Four handfuls of sundew were infused in
two quarts of brandy, and to the infusion was added a pound and a
half of finely pounded sugar, a pint and a half of milk, and an
ounce of powdered cinnamon. The decoction was then strained through
a cloth, and to it were added two grains of musk and half an ounce
of sugar candy. The manufacture of the liqueur might be worth
reviving at some of our Highland distilleries at the present day.]

A steadily growing demand for
information regarding public events is indicated by the refund to
"John Alexander, post," of £60 Scots, which he had paid to Robert
Mein for the supply of news letters and gazettes, as well as ten
merks for half a barrel of herring given to Donald McKay for his
trouble in despatching the news sheets. [Burgh Records, 30th Sept.
1682.]

Alongside of these evidences of a
generous outlook on life on the part of the city fathers must be set
a mental attitude which reflects less credit upon certain members of
the community who might have been looked to for greater
enlightenment. Little need be thought of vulgar rumours of
apparitions being seen in and about the city, and of strange voices
and wild cries being heard in the night about such lonely places as
the Dean-side well. These are the common apparatus of ghaists and
bogies current among the ignorant even to our own time in every part
of the country. But more significance must be attached to the mental
attitude of a book written by the occupant of a chair in Glasgow
University. George Sinclair, Professor of Philosophy at the College
of Glasgow, was the author of Satan's Invisible World Discovered.
The character of the work may be gathered from its sub-title, "A
Choice Collection of Modern Relations, proving evidently, against
the Atheists of this present age, that there are Devils, Spirits,
Witches, and Apparitions, from authentic records and attestations of
witnesses of undoubted veracity." The book was granted copyright for
eleven years by the Privy Council, and continued to be reprinted as
late as the year 1814. [Reg. Priv. Coun. 26th Feb. 1685. Chambers's
Domestic Annals, ii. 435, 475.] In the mind of Sinclair and a large
body of the public of that time a man was an "Atheist" if he did not
believe in the existence of apparitions, witches, spirits, and
devils.

Such were some of the preoccupations
of the minds of the citizens of Glasgow as the reign of Charles II.
was drawing to a close. All the time there remained the constant
disturbing element which had bred trouble in Scotland for a hundred
years. As has been well said, "Men, in trying to make each other
Episcopalians and Presbyterians, almost ceased to be Christians." To
us, amid the conditions of to-day, the ostensible points then at
issue do not appear to be so vital. The introduction of a liturgy,
regarding which so much trouble was made in the days of Charles I.,
was nothing new in Scotland. John Knox himself drew up and
introduced a liturgy, the "Forms of Prayer and Catechism," which was
even translated into Gaelic by Bishop Carswell of Argyll. Nor was
the government of the Church by bishops much different from its
supervision by the "superintendents" appointed as overseers of
ecclesiastical affairs in all districts of the country by Knox and
his friends. Even the method of selecting and installing the
ministers appears to have been little different in the two
communions. Here are the proceedings which were followed in
inducting a minister in Glasgow in the year before the death of
Charles II.:

"The proveist, baillies, and counsell
of the said burgh being conveened, and, taking to their
consideration their calling and presenting of ane able and qualified
person for serving the cure as ane of this burghs ordinary
ministeris, now vacant throw the transportation of Mr. John Gray,
late minister here, from this place to Aberlady, they all, with ane
unanimous consent, being assured and weill informed of the
qualificatioune, good lyfe, and conversatioune of Sir. John Saige,
student of divinity, has called, nominat, and presented, and hereby
calls, nominats, and presents the said Mr. John Saige, to be ane of
the ordinary ministeris of this burgh in place of the said Mr. John
Gray, and to the ordinary stipend payable yeirly to ane of the
ministeris within the said burgh, serving the cure ther, quhilk is,
yearly, ane thousand pounds money of stipend and four scoir pounds
of bows maul, to be paid at twa termes in the yeir, Whitsonday and
Martiines, be equall portions, beginnand the first termes payment
therof at the term of Whitsonday jIn vj° and eighty fyve yeiris for
the half yeir immediately preceeding ; and wills and desyres the
most reverend father in God, Arthur, by the mercy of God archbishop
of Glasgow, to try and examine the literatur, qualificatioune, good
lyfe and conversation, of the said Mr. John Sage, and, being found
qualified, to admitt and receive him to be ane of the ministeris of
this burgh for exercing the function of the ministrie therin, and to
give him collation, institution, and all uther sort of ecclesiastick
ordouris requisit for that effect, and to take his oath for giving
dew obedience to his grace the said archbishop, his ordinary, in
forme as effeiris; and ordains the clerk to subscryve and give furth
to the said Mr. John Sage ane extract of thir presents, quhilk is
declared to be als sufficient as if ther wer a presentatioune drawen
wp and subscrivit be the saids magistratis and counsell themselves."
[Burgh Records, 23rd Aug. 1684.]

In view of the slightness of
difference in the actual practice of the two communions, the roots
of the discord must be looked for elsewhere. Perhaps it lay in the
proclivity, already pointed out, of the Church of Calvin to follow
the teaching of the Old Testament rather than the New, and a
consequent feeling of the ministers that, like Elijah and the other
prophets of the Jews, they should be subject to no human authority;
and should exercise power over public and private affairs directly
in the name of God. A similar power had been claimed by the Roman
churchmen of an earlier day, the priests urging that they were not
amenable to the secular law, but were subject only to the direction
of the Pope and the courts of Rome. King Robert the Bruce and other
Scottish kings strongly resented that early attempt to set up an
imperium in imperio, which made effective government impossible, and
they crushed its pretensions with a firm hand. In like circumstances
the Stewart kings of the seventeenth century saw a menace to good
government in the claim of the Genevan churchmen to an absolute
domination in the affairs of public and private life. They were,
further, naturally alarmed when that claim took the form of armed
force, and the fact that it actually succeeded so far as to bring
Charles I. to the block, made the rulers of Scotland after the
Restoration particularly alive to the dangers which might lurk in
the doctrines of men like Cargill and Cameron and Peden the Prophet.
They could not but be confirmed in their opinion by the formidable
armed risings which culminated in the battles of Rullion Green and
Bothwell Bridge and Ayr's Moss; and when, in 1680, the authors of
the Sanquhar Declaration threw down the gauntlet of open war, there
could no longer be any question as to what must be done.

The answer to that Declaration was
the famous Test Act of 1681. This Government measure, along with the
oath imposed on members of parliament which immediately preceded it,
was apparently founded on the first of the English Test or
Corporation Acts then already in existence, which was only finally
repealed in the reign of George IV. [Act 13 Carl. II. c. 2 ; 25
Carl. II. c. i ; 9 George IV. c. 17.] The oath declared it to be
"unlawful to subjects, upon pretence of reformation, or other
pretence whatsoever, to enter into leagues or covenants, or to take
up arms against the king or those commissioned by him"; it
characterized as unlawful and seditious "all these gatherings,
convocations, petitions, protestations, and erecting and keeping of
council tables, that were used in the beginning of and for carrying
out of the late troubles"; and it specifically mentioned as unlawful
"these oaths, whereof the one was commonly called The National
Covenant, as it was sworn and explained in the year 1638 and
thereafter, and another entituled A Solemn League and Covenant, ...
taken by and imposed upon the subjects of this kingdom against the
fundamental laws and liberties of the same." While the oath was
signed only by the members of the Scots parliament at the beginning
of the session, the "Act anent Religion and the Test" which that
parliament placed upon the statute book had to be accepted on solemn
oath by all persons holding public office throughout the country. It
ran : "I own and sincerely profess the true Protestant religion
contained in the Confession of Faith received in the first
Parliament of King James the Sixth, and I believe the same to be
founded on and agreeable to the written Word of God. And I promise
and swear that I shall adhere thereto all the days of my lifetime,
and shall endeavour to educate my children therein, and shall never
consent to any change or alteration contrary thereto; and I disown
and renounce all such practices, whether Popish or fanatic, [The
rebels of the west country were commonly alluded to as "fanatics."]
which are contrary to or inconsistent with the said Protestant
religion and Confession of Faith." The Test further included the
assertion "that the King's majesty is the only supreme governor of
this realm over all persons and in all causes, as well
ecclesiastical as civil." It was to this last statement that the
Covenanters in the West of Scotland chiefly took exception. They
held that Christ was the only head of the Church, and that, if any
of the King's acts did not conform to their personal reading of
Scripture, they were entitled to withdraw their allegiance and make
war upon the earthly monarch.

The Government was further stirred to
action by the discovery of the Ryehouse and Assassination plots in
England. These plots, mainly organized by a Scotsman, Robert
Fergusson, "the Plotter," proposed to remove the danger of a Roman
Catholic, in the person of the Duke of York, succeeding to the
throne, by deliberate murder of the Duke and King Charles himself as
they passed a certain place. Fergusson had actually arranged the
place for the assassination, had consecrated a blunderbus for the
purpose, and, as a clergyman, had composed a sermon to be preached
after the happy deliverance. He was on one of his frequent visits to
Edinburgh when the plot was discovered, and only escaped the hue and
cry by taking refuge in the tolbooth itself, where the keeper of the
prison was his friend. Following the discovery a number of Scotsmen
who had been in touch with Fergusson were arrested and put to the
torture in Edinburgh. Campbell of Cessnock, a supporter of the Earl
of Argyll, was brought to trial, but acquitted; while Baillie of
Jerviswood, though his association with the plotters in London was
almost certainly innocent, was found guilty and hanged.

In the West of Scotland the treatment
of suspected persons became more rigorous. For weeks a court sat in
Glasgow to inquire into the loyalty of suspected persons. Its
president was the Hon. John Drummond of Lundin, successively
Treasurer Depute and Secretary of State for Scotland, and afterwards
Earl of Melfort, and much interesting information as to the temper
of the people and their treatment by Government at the time is to be
found in the reports which he sent daily to the Marquess of
Queensberry at Dumfries. The proceedings appear to have been
orderly, and most of the breakers of the law, chiefly in the
countenancing of conventicles and harbouring of disaffected persons,
were dealt with by fines. Among those mulcted in this way were Sir
George Maxwell of Pollock and the Laird of Duchal. [Historical
Manuscripts Commission Report on Drumlanrig MSS. of Duke of
Buccleuch, ii. 175-196.] But there were also more serious cases. In
Glasgow on 19th March, 1684, as described by Woodrow, "five worthy
and good men were executed at the cross." One had been present at
Ayr's Moss, another, a Glasgow tailor, could give no satisfactory
answer "anent Bothwell and the bishop's death," and all five were
indicted with taking part at Bothwell Bridge and with being
"accessory to other insurrections, and reset and converse." The
printed defence of one of the accused, John Main, ran "that he was
at Bothwell, but only as an onlooker; that he had conversed with
one, Gavin Wotherspoon, who was asserted to be a rebel but not
proven one; that indeed he had not termed Bothwell a rebellion,
neither would he renounce the covenants; that his silence as to the
King's authority could never in law be made treason; that as to King
Charles I. his death, he knew nothing about it; and as to the
archbishop's, he would not judge of that action." The answers of the
other men, says the historian, were much the same as these, and it
was chiefly upon their silence when questioned on the three last
points that they were condemned. "All of them died in much comfort,
peace, and the utmost cheerfulness," and were buried in the High
Church yard, where a memorial stone still contains their names. At
the execution one Gavin Black, from Monkland, was arrested by the
soldiers "upon mere suspicion, and some tokens of sorrow appearing
in him," and put in prison, and afterwards, failing to give
satisfactory answers to inquiries, was banished to Carolina. And at
the burial, James Nisbet, a relation of one of the men executed, was
arrested, and afterwards shared their fate, being hanged at the
Howgate-head near Glasgow, in June. "He owned Drumclog and Bothwell
lawful, in as far as they were acts of self-defence, and appearances
for the gospel. He refused to renounce the covenants, and to own the
King's authority, as he expressed, in so far as he had made the work
of reformation and covenants, treason. After lie was condemned he
was offered his life if he would acknowledge the King's headship and
supremacy over the Church, which they well knew he would never do."
[Wodrow, iv. 62-67.] A stone in the wall of Castle Street near the
foot of Garngad Hill marks the burial-place of Nisbet and other two,
James Lawson and Alexander Wood, who suffered on 24th October 1684.

While these arrests and executions
were going on, the authorities put into more vigorous effect their
measures against the nonconforming ministers, whom they considered
to be chief agents in fanning the smouldering embers of disaffection
and rebellion. On 22nd April the magistrates of Glasgow sent a
proclamation through the town warning all nonconforming preachers to
leave the burgh within forty-eight hours, and to remove their
families before Whitsunday, "conform to ane act of his Majesty's
privy councell daited the 27th of July 1680."

Such was the state of affairs in the
country when an event occurred which immediately realized the worst
fears of the Government. On 6th February, 1685, King Charles II.
died. Within three months, landing with arms and munitions from
Holland, the Duke of Monmouth in the West of England and the Earl of
Argyll in the West of Scotland raised the standard of rebellion, and
the two kingdoms were plunged once again into the throes of civil
war.

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